"The Coal Strike Situation"

Scanned from Public Opinion, October 16, 1902.

THE president's second move toward a settlement of the anthracite coal strike was taken on Monday, the 6th. Through Commissioner of Labor Wright, Mr. Roosevelt offered, if the miners would return to work, to appoint a commission to investigate the matters at issue between them and their employers and to do all in his power to obtain a settlement of those matters in accordance with the report of the commission. Mr. Mitchell's reply to this proposal was made public on Thursday. He declined to advise the miners to return to work "simply upon the hope that the coal operators might be induced or forced to comply with the recommendations of your (the president's) commission." Mr. Mitchell's position was supported by votes of the numerous local unions.

Governor Stone on the 6th ordered out the entire national guard of the state, about 9,000 men, for duty in the coal fields. This action is commended on all sides, partly because it is believed that it will end the lawlessness that has reigned there, but mainly because it will put to the test the claim of the operators that they could mine coal if given proper protection for themselves and for miners willing to return to work if they and their homes were secure from molestation. No visible effect has as yet followed the presence of the increased militia force in the field, and some of the operators are quoted as saying that a still larger force is needed.

Friday the newspapers contained the text of two letters written to President Roosevelt by the attorney for the Delaware and Hudson railroad, requesting that federal proceedings be taken against the United mine workers' association as an organization existing in conflict with the Sherman anti-trust law. The argument of the attorney was that the association operated not only to restrict but to prevent trade, and that it should be restrained by such an injunction as issued in the Debs case. "Impudent," is the characterization made by almost every newspaper commenting on this demand.

The New York papers express no surprise that Mr. Mitchell should have refused to surrender the fruits of the miners' long-fought battle and only the Sun and the Times blame the miners for taking this stand. The Philadelphia North American (Ind.) thinks that Governor Stone's action in ordering out the national guard made it impossible for Mr. Mitchell's to accede to the president's wishes without confessing defeat—something that the miners could not be expected to do.

"Of course" says the Boston Traveler (Dem.), "Mitchell will not be caught with such chaff even to help the Republican party out of the straits into which it has fallen." The Boston Herald (Ind.) is almost alone in the opinion that "the miners have forfeited popular sympathy" by declining the president's request. The Boston Post (Dem.) describes Mr. Mitchell's position as "sound and reasonable," while the Pittsburg Gazette (Rep.) thinks it "quite natural." The Baltimore News (Dem.) adopts the wording of many other editorials when it says that "it is difficult to blame the miners for their refusal." "Why should the miners surrender," the Omaha Bee (Rep.) asks, "and thus practically concede that they are in the wrong, besides putting themselves at the mercy of the coal combine ? They certainly owe no more to the public than the operators owe, and in the general opinion not nearly so much."

While a careful examination of the newspaper comment representing every state in the union does not altogether confirm the statement of the Savannah News (Dem.) that in his actions with regard to the strike "the president has the approval of the entire country," the volume of public opinion does approve the president's successive steps toward a settlement. The Springfield Republican (Ind.) points out that the president has "recognized a union which the operators will not recognize," and while it does not blame the miners for rejecting his good offices, it thinks that the miners can not do better than accept them. The Philadelphia Ledger (Ind.) declares with vehemence that "it is a burning shame that formal government should feel obliged to treat with the upholders of the mob, of riot, of murder, and anarchy." The Philadelphia Press (Rep.) admits that the president has taken a long step, but defends it as a "safe step." The Chicago Record-Herald (Rep.) thinks Mr. Roosevelt has made a huge mistake; "his reputation for common sense almost forbids the thought that he could have imagined that the miners would consent to such a lame termination of the struggle as he proposed." The Portland Oregonian (Ind.) admits that the operators "have put the president in a hole. But they will rue their course bitterly and in tears. There is such a thing as sowing the wind to reap the whirlwind." The Richmond Times (Dem.) gives the president full credit for good intention, but asserts that he "has made a sorry mess of it, as he always will do when he interferes in matters outside the sphere of government control." The Louisville Courier-Journal (Dem.) prints a long editorial on Mr. Roosevelt's "usurpation of power," claiming that he has been acting "wholly without his authority." The Atlanta Constitution (Dem.) declares that the president has establish a new standard of federal duty.

Discussing the relative "lawlessness" of miners and operators, the Pittsburg Post (Dem.) asks, "should the latter go unwhipt of justice by the force of public opinion or the potency of the criminal law? Pass by their contemptuous and insulting rejection of the president's arbitration proposals, they are arrayed and have been for years in defiance of the constitution and laws of Pennsylvania and the anti-trust law passed by congress years ago, and which it is the duty of President Roosevelt to enforce. Under that law President Baer and his five or six associates have as clear a right behind the grating of a prison as any of the hungry and reckless miners."